We Need A Mindset Change To Drive Sustainability In Design: Anuj Sharma

Sharma was born and raised in Rajasthan. He studied Apparel Design at the National Institute of Design (NID) in India. He has an MA in High-performance Sportswear Design from the University of Derby, UK, for which he was awarded the Charles Wallace India Trust Scholarship in 2002. 

The Button Masala collection has been showcased at the travelling exhibition, Connecting Concepts by DutchDFA and Bliss at the Taiwan Design Expo. Sharma has attended the Fashion Coterie in New York and participated in a show at the Alchemy Festival in London. He was invited by the Indian multinational company HCL to speak on unconventional management at the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland.

What has shaped your design sensibilities? How did design school impact this?
I am from Rajasthan, so my values of sustainability, conserving and preserving came from there and my experience growing up. The desire to design objects that are convenient for usage and sustainable in nature, was inherent in me. Design school helped me develop a sense of diversity, and culture. It all came together and shaped my sensibilities. 

Tell me about ButtonMasala. How did you start? 
I saw a man button his shirt wrong, and it made me think of how it would be if a fabric had multiple buttons. I experimented with this thought and created an innovative method of constructing clothes without machines, tools, or stitching techniques. In fact, one fabric using the ButtonMasala technique can transform into multiple designs. 

Interestingly, my first showcase at the Lakme Fashion Week (2007) was a collection of second-hand shirts. It is interesting that people are talking about reusing clothes and fabrics these days, but I started much earlier. A large segment of the fashion industry still thinks that using organic fabric and crafts is enough to qualify as sustainable. I feel people are not looking at the larger picture. The idea of sustainability has started to evolve, but there’s a long way to go. 

What can we expect from ButtonMasala in the next few years?
Now, I teach this innovative joinery method. I have taught over fifty thousand people across twenty countries in twelve years. The idea is to fight the concept of Fashion that is unsustainable. The fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world, and we need to get serious about sustainability. 

According to you, what is good design?
Good design for me is something that happens with ease. Design that is too complex to understand or apply fails to be 'good design'. Further, it must be sustainable, functional, and aesthetically pleasing. For example, compare stitching, cutting, and pattern making with the simple ButtonMasala technique. We must keep convenience and utility central to design. Designers somehow got into a mindset to dazzle the audience and make things complex. This mindset needs to change.

Areas we need to focus on in the design industry?
I think it would be sustainability and functionality. We need to understand the intent of a product and then design accordingly. In fact, this goes back to our earlier conversation about which aspect, aesthetics or functionality, is more important. I would say intent is most important.